


soon enough you'll find your way home

by elizajane



Series: hold it, and share it [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Eric POV, Established Relationship, F/F, Future Fic, M/M, Queer Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6650110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Home</em> settles over him like a mantle, seeps into his bones along grooves worn deep by the long day and the longer season that stretches out behind them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soon enough you'll find your way home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Up_A_Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Up_A_Sun/gifts).



> I wrote this fic for Sun because she was having a rough week. And then she was kind enough to offer concrit so I could make it even better! <3
> 
> Thank you also to wife Crowgirl for the third pair of eyes. 
> 
> All remaining errors are (as always) my own.
> 
> All of the these pieces I'm writing for [Check Please!](http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/) are part of a head!canon 'verse I'm working out that began with a few questions I posed to myself about both the canon and fanon work I've been enjoying. If you want those premises, check the endnotes.

Dinner at George and Joelle’s goes later than usual on the first weekend of Eric’s summer break. It’s the Friday of the long Memorial Day weekend and beautiful early summer weather so George grills them all burgers and corn on the cob out on the back porch. Joelle makes the salad while listening to the tail end of Marketplace on NPR and Eric lets himself decompress from the drive down from Boston by slicing strawberries and mixing batter for his mother’s award-winning strawberry shortcake.

Through the open windows, he can hear Jack on the back deck with Emmy, talking quietly with George and playing some sort of complex game involving Emmeline’s brightly-colored wooden blocks and occasional shrieks of toddler delight.

Joelle shakes her head, amused, at the sound. “I’m not complaining, mind,” she says, “because Emmy flat out _adores_ Jack. When he babysits Georgia and I actually get to enjoy a leisurely dinner and a whole movie before coming home! But a mama has a right to be jealous sometimes."

Eric laughs, “My mama would certainly agree with you. Although at the moment she can’t make up her mind whether it’s me or Jack she’s jealous of!” He and Joelle have bonded in the past year as displaced Southerners in New England.

They eat with the PawSox game on the radio, so Georgia can keep track of the score, and talk about Lardo’s work at the gallery; Ransom and Holster’s trip to Nigeria; Eric’s summer internship; Boston Pride; Joelle and Georgia’s annual pilgrimage to P-Town;the arts fairs Joelle’s been prepping for; the Falconers’ off-season plans. 

After dinner, Jack offers to read Em’s bedtime story while Eric and George clear the dinner table and start in on the dinner dishes. As they disappear upstairs, a giggling Emmy slung piggyback in the cradle of Jack’s arms, Joelle appears in the kitchen with her finger on her lips and sets the nursery monitor on the kitchen counter.

“Honey--” George begins.

“There’s nothing wrong with--” Joelle protests, then turning to Eric: “Trust me. Y’all will want to hear this.”

“What?” Eric asks.

“Neither of us get it right anymore,” Georgia sighs, with a smile. “Ever since Jack started singing her to sleep with his ‘magic’ --” she give the word air quotes with her fingers, “-- lullabies in Quebecois, even my Spanish lullabies are only a grudgingly-accepted substitute.”

Eric considers his options for response -- he knows first-hand how magical Jack’s Quebecois can be -- and settles for, “Miss Emmeline certainly has impeccable taste.”

So they finish cleaning up the kitchen to the staticky sounds of Jack reading _More! More! More! Said the Baby_ (three times) and then the soothing murmur of Jack singing softly to the sleepy three-year-old until she’s drifted fully off to sleep.

When the last glass has been put away and Eric picks up the sound of Jack’s stocking feet padding back down the stair, Joelle opens the fridge and pours them all glasses of chilled chardonnay. The four of them wind up sitting at the island in the kitchen, with spoons and their glasses of wine, eating the last of Eric’s strawberry shortcake straight out of the baking dish.

It’s only eight thirty but Eric can feel weariness creeping up on him. The early morning shift at Hayley House, the drive down I-95 from Boston to Pawtucket in Friday afternoon bumper-to-bumper traffic -- half of metro Boston seemed en route to the Cape for the holiday weekend -- have taken their toll.  But it’s a contented sort of weariness, because he’s ending the day with Jack and their friends. The dry bite of the wine and the juice of late-season strawberries -- crushed and lightly sugared -- slide down his throat and settle cool and easy in his stomach.

He lets himself lean drowsily against Jack’s arm, listening to George, Jack, and Joelle discuss a sports photography project they’re coordinating over the summer -- one of Joelle’s RISD students whom Jack has agreed to mentor for the summer session. He remembers, vaguely, a Skype conversation in which Jack had told him about this, back before finals. He’s only been at his summer internship in Boston for a week and by this morning he feels like his junior year is a distant memory.

“Jack, y’all better get to bed before Eric falls asleep sitting up,” Joelle finally says, over the final soft scrape of George’s spoon against the glass bottom of the shortcake dish.

“‘M good, it’s good,” Eric murmurs, although he doesn’t bother to open his eyes, “S’nice.”

Jack laughs softly, a sound Eric can feel like a buzz against his cheek where it rests against Jack’s arm. “Sorry, Bits, I forgot -- 3am this morning, right? Let’s get you home.”

 _Home_. Because of the bakery hours, Eric’s plan is to spend Sunday through Thursday nights at Lardo’s place in Dorchester, and weekends with Jack. This first weekend of their summer feels a bit unreal -- like they’re playing house, playing grown up. He and Jack walk back home along Blackstone Boulevard, fingers intertwined, not saying much, except when Jack points out the fireflies and Eric spots a nighthawk. The moon, hanging low above the wrought-iron gates and majestic trees of Swan Point Cemetery, is waxing towards full and casting long shadows even over the yellow glow of city streetlights.

At the front entrance of the newly-renovated factory building where Jack’s been renting, Eric listens to the quiet sounds of Jack’s neighborhood -- _their_ neighborhood -- while Jack keys in the code for the front door.  After the darkness outside, the LEED-certified lighting in the foyer and hallway feels harsh against Eric’s skin. He’s grateful when they reach the second floor, even though Jack has to drop his hand for a minute to fumble with his keys. Inside the apartment, the high factory windows allow the moon to cast cool, slanting light across the main room, and they don’t even bother to turn on any lights as they kick off their sandals next to the door and make their way into the bedroom.

“Lord. Feels like I could sleep for a solid week,” Eric admits as he gropes for the light switch just inside the bathroom door.

“I’m sorry -- I should have asked before saying yes to dinner. I just--” Jack tries to apologize.

“Hush, Jack,” Eric turns, “it was lovely. They’re good people.”

“You’re just saying that because Joelle is from Atlanta.”

“Shush,” Eric smiles. “Well, maybe.”

“Admit I’m right, Bittle.” Jack smiles back.

“I don’t know…” Eric’s momentarily a little less tired, “What do I get?” 

“I don’t know…” Jack echoes back, reaching up to slide a broad hand up the line of Eric’s jaw, brush a thumb across Eric’s lower lip. “What do you want?”

Eric leans up on his tiptoes and pulls Jack down into a kiss. Exhaustion still plucking at his nerves, it’s not a complicated kiss -- soft and warm, _thank you for being here_ and _I’m so glad to be home_ all rolled into one. It’s so easy, being here. Eric knows he’ll miss Madison, sometimes, knows even though he never wants to move back to where he grew up that a part of him will never leave -- will always warm at the soft, honeyed sounds of a Georgian drawl. There’s something about Joelle that still reads like home.

But this summer is, partly, about him and Jack making Pawtucket and Providence -- about making _this_ apartment -- home, a space that’s truly theirs, together. Not just a place Eric happens to visit on weekends when neither of them have an away game.

 _Home_ settles over him like a mantle, seeps into his bones along grooves worn deep by the long day and the longer season that stretches out behind them. His internship and senior year still stand between Eric and _this_ every day -- but the assurance of having something to wait _for_ is what matters. It takes his breath away every day,  whenever he slows down enough to let himself feel the truth of Jack being _his_. 

“Hey,” Jack whispers, pulling back just enough to drag air in across Eric’s cheek.

“Hey,” Eric whispers back. Jack still tastes of strawberries and wine.

“I think,” he says, hearing the slight wobble in his own voice, “I think I already have what I want.”

“Bittle,” Jack smiles against his cheek, “I believe you’re a terrible romantic.”

“Like that’s any sort of secret, Mr. Zimmerman,” Eric nudges him, putting just enough space between them so he can slide his hands up and begin working open Jack’s button-down shirt. “Like it’s any sort of secret how much I--” He presses his lips together, embarrassed by the tears suddenly standing in his eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Jack laughs, gently, pulling Eric close, cutting his own laughter short by kissing away the tears in Eric’s eyelashes, against his cheeks, tracing now-salty lips across Eric’s trembling mouth. “ _J’taime_ , Eric. _Amoureux, ne pleure pas_. Shh.”

“Take me to bed and sing me a lullaby?” Eric asks, pushing open Jack’s shirt so he can lean into Jack’s warmth and press his ear against Jack’s bare chest,  listen to Jack’s heartbeat slow and sure echo in his ear.

And Jack does.

**Author's Note:**

> **Location Notes**
> 
>  
> 
> Since we live in Boston I'm totally pillaging my local knowledge for this fandom. Haha! 
> 
> [Haley House Bakery and Cafe](http://haleyhouse.org/what-we-do/bakery-cafe/) is a Roxbury (Boston, Mass.) non-profit that offers a variety of social welfare services such as transitional housing and free meals; they also have a bakery that works with local coffee shops and institutions such as Harvard to supply baked goods. I decided to have Eric do an internship with them between his junior and senior year as a way to explore his options for working in the food industry.
> 
> I put both Jack and the Georgia/Joelle household in Pawtucket rather than Providence, R.I. proper. I did this because a) I am more familiar with Pawtucket, and b) I decided for head!canon reasons (see below) that Jack chose to move to a neighborhood close to Georgia's family and also at a slight remove from the Falconers spaces.
> 
> [Blackstone Boulevard Park](http://www.blackstoneparksconservancy.org/the-parks/blackstone-boulevard-park/%20) is a beautiful walking/running/biking path that runs several miles through Pawtucket, past Swan Point Cemetery -- where H.P. Lovecraft, [among other famous individuals](http://swanpointcemetery.com/notable-people.php), is buried!
> 
> The Pawtucket Red Sox (a.k.a. [PawSox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawtucket_Red_Sox%20)) are a local team. Georgia played softball in high school and undergrad, and likes to follows the local teams. 
> 
> The [book Jack reads Emmy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQZCGXqVMDY) is by Vera B. Williams and I give it to every family I know who has a baby. I have it on good authority that three year olds cannot get enough of it.
> 
> Jack and Eric's apartment in Pawtucket was [transplanted from my hometown](http://www.bakerlofts.com/), where it was briefly rented by my sister and a former boyfriend. It's the sort of space I imagine Jack liking for the light and interesting visual elements, while supplying Eric with the up-to-date kitchen area that he will obviously require.
> 
> **Premises**
> 
> So this 'verse was born from my interest in why Georgia Martin is so present in some of the canon comics, and why she's taken such a particular interest in Jack. What if, I asked myself, Georgia -- with the support of the team's upper management -- is working to make the Falconer's a welcoming, inclusive, and diverse team and workplace culture? What if she's heard good things about Jack's leadership and Samwell and has a conversation with him on her first visit about what the team/staff are doing to shift the culture of the NFL by example? She doesn't know at the time that Jack is queer, but is open about her own wife and daughter, and it's this conversation (primarily) that makes the Falconers the only team Jack actually seriously considers. 
> 
> I'm also interested in asking what might happen if Jack realizes, during his first year with the Falconers, that -- after so many years with professional hockey as a goal --playing professionally is slowly, but surely sucking the pleasure out of hockey for him? How would he go about figuring out what he wants to do instead and transitioning to a different career? So I gave Georgia a wife who's an artist and educator, who can help Jack think about this other side of himself that we saw in canon (and which has been expanded on in so much lovely fic!) in Jack's love of photography.
> 
> Eric is out to his parents in this fic because, in my developing head!canon, he comes out to his parents (not that they don't already know) in June 2015 before Jack arrives in Madison for the 4th of July. Jack has been out at work, too, since shortly after signing his contract -- certainly since he and Eric have been together.


End file.
